Age and experimental obstructive emphysema. A morphometrical study on the rat.

: Age, as a risk factor in the development of experimental obstructive emphysema, is proposed as the hypothesis of this study. Ninety-two Wistar rats were organized into two age groups: adult (16 weeks) and middle-aged (56 weeks). Each age group was subdivided into three groups: a control group, consisting of unmanipulated animals; a "cannula" group consisting of animals into whose trachea a cannula was implanted; and a "valve" group, consisting of animals into whose trachea a valve had been implanted. The survival was one month. A histomorphometric study was performed on the lungs and the results were compared statistically. Throughout the experiment the amount of food consumed by each animal and the variations in weight were monitored. After sacrifice, the lungs were processed for light microscopy. Thirteen histomorphometric variables were quantified and subsequently systematized into three groups: those which quantified the size of the distal airspace ("area of the alveolar section", "alveolar chord" and "mean linear intercept"): those which quantified the tissue ("wall thickness", "tissue density", "internal perimeter of each alveolar section", "internal alveolar perimeter per field" and "alveolar section/section perimeter"); and those which quantified the elastic fibre ("elastic fibre area", "elastic fibre perimeter", "elastic fibre area/elastic fibre perimeter", "elastic fibre density" and "elastic fibre density per tissue density"). The results were compared statistically and the sensitivity, specificity and misclassification indices were calculated, as well as the attributable and relative risk. From the results, it was observed that, in general, the animals of the valve and cannula groups in both age groups displayed a decrease in food intake and a body weight loss. The middle-aged animals were the only group which displayed significant differences in all the morphometric variables except wall thickness, when the cannula and valve groups were compared with the control group. In both the cannula and valve groups, the values of the variables which quantified the distal airspace increased, while the values of the variables which quantified the lung tissue and the elastic fibre decreased. In the manipulated middle-aged group, the attributable risk of developing emphysema was 56.66% and the relative risk 5.55; in the group of manipulated adult animals, the attributable risk was 23.55% and the relative risk 1.66. The results of this study lead us to propose that the middle-aged rats with experimental airflow obstruction displayed a greater risk of developing emphysema than the adult rats which were subjected to the same procedure.